Conatus: THIRD EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

C O N A T U S

you more if you put a bit of effort in.

There already seem to be inherent values at play here — fairness, love, altruism, friendship, generosity — even beauty. E.F. Schumacher (starting with meaning as the basis of morality) suggested freedom, equality, the pursuit of happiness and love should be the ideals at the root of our morality. For Sartre and Camus, love, freedom, dignity and creativity are the things that we should be living for. In this chapter, morality and justice are our main concerns — how we act in groups, communities and societies and how we come to make decisions about what is right and wrong in the public domain.

Let’s start with the idea of ‘natural justice’. Without a civilisation or government, or even a tribe, individuals are vulnerable to being attacked and possibly killed by others. We would probably all agree with the idea that in this situation the individual has the right to defend themselves and, if needed, kill their attacker. This, we might say, is a kind of natural justice. The idea of a government was proposed to avoid this situation of being perpetually vulnerable to physical attack. Under a government, it is only the state that has the right to use violence against others in order to maintain security.

It has to be said that this is about as far as any agreement goes when the attempt is made to construct a government or state from first principles! But let’s continue.

When it comes to property (and theft) for

188